Rochester magnet school students to create exhibit for children's museum

By Samantha Allen

sallen@fosters.com

Monday, November 26, 2012

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Ryan McBride/Staff photographer (Dover, NH)- Children from the Maple Street Magnet School enjoy a machine at Dover's Children Museum before starting their school wide project which will be featured in the museum's “Big World, Small World” program.

DOVER — While few adults could say their work has been on exhibit in a museum, in a few weeks, dozens of Rochester's Maple Street Magnet School students will have that claim to boast.

As part of the Children's Museum of New Hampshire's program “Big World, Small World,” students will assemble a schoolwide project featuring their heritage and family histories, designed around interviews with family members. Students in grades 1 through 4 and kindergarteners are tasked to carry out their interviews during the Thanksgiving holiday, and will work during assigned project time next month to assemble a consistent exhibit with their peers.

Museum Director of Community Engagement Paula Rais said she has worked with other students from schools in Laconia and Sanford, Maine, but never an entire school in this program. Before students were released into the museum, she asked them to take notice of what makes an exhibit so interesting, and to remember what aspects they could incorporate into their own work.

“There's a great connection with their own families, whether they're still around or they're just hearing the stories about their families,” Rais added. “They learn a lot about the world and where their families came from. They get a sense of pride and identity that … There's a sense of shared experience (too) because all of us have been from somewhere else. We were all immigrants at some point in history. Recognizing that and working from there is just really a great unifier.”

Principal Robin Brown said she hopes the partnership with the museum will establish a sense of community between the magnet school and the region. The new school opened this year in the Lilac City, with students learning for an extra 20 school days including nearly daily French tutoring and individualized project based learning (PBL). Brown said students will use their PBL time in school to develop their joint exhibit project, to be featured on the children's museum's walls sometime after winter break in January.

“Part of (PBL learning) is about having a real world connection, so this is perfect,” Brown said. “… They're going to be doing this project but it's going to be so meaningful seeing it on exhibit.”

Parent and chaperone for the day Danielle Lyons, with her two sons, Ezekiel, 6, and Levi, 7, said she has been thrilled with the magnet school so far. She said she has observed her children absorbing information in the past few months, speaking French and coming home excited to share what they learned.

“I love everything about the magnet school. Project based learning, it's such a good way for children to engage in their education and they work well with each other, in different groups,” she said.

Lyons noted on Thanksgiving that she hopes to hear more questions from her boys about where their family came from. She said she they already asked about their heritage, which includes Canadian and Irish roots.

Garrett Doucette, 7, in the second grade, said he looked forward to interviewing his grandfather, a Vietnam veteran, during the break. Doucette added he has also loved the hands-on learning at the magnet school, and is excited at the idea of his work being on display at the museum.

“I feel great about that,” he said. “Somebody's getting a chance to actually see your work. Instead of your mom and your dad and your teachers and your friends, everybody gets to see it.”

Veronica Guptel, 7, said she may talk to her uncle and Emmeline Sevey, 7, said she would try interviewing her aunt.

First grader Katherine Hunter, 6, added she loved being in the museum, stating “fun” when asked what she liked most about it.

“You get to do different activities,” she said.

A gallery night will be hosted at the Children's Museum of N.H. in Dover to open the magnet school's “Big World, Small World” event in January 2013. The museum program is funded by the Lincoln Financial Foundation.

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Ryan McBride/Staff photographer (Dover, NH)- Mikel Roberson (left, 6 years old) and Faith Wilder (right, 6 years old) both in first grade at Maple Street Magnet School try on the “Masks of Africa” to look at different cultures around the world as part of the “Big World, Small World” program at Dover’s Children Museum.

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Ryan McBride/Staff photographer (Dover, NH)- Alex Sirles (center) 7 years old, looks up at a TV talking about different adventures to take in the world at Dover’s Children Museum for the program “Big World, Small World”.